Advocacy research: A bane more than a boon

Category: Education

Every academician knows that research can be manipulated to any extent as per the whims and fancy of the researcher. There are so many tricks to mask your personal and biased opinions with the results of your study. Of late, there has been a steep rise in advocacy research. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “advocacy research” as “research that is carried out with the intention of providing evidence and arguments that can be used to support a particular cause or position.” In layman’s terms, it is research that propagates the views or beliefs of a particular individual, (pressure or lobby) group, or community. Advocacy research brazenly states an obvious objective to provide evidence for supporting a specific cause. This research is often orchestrated and funded by advocacy communities/groups that wish to amass data only to re-affirm their strategic proposals and arguments. Usually, these studies pursue social problems to raise public awareness and act as a catalyst to the policy proposals to amend the issue in question. Sometimes, advocacy research studies bend their methods to magnify the graveness of a social problem and hasten public action for a solution to the issue. Advocacy research has infiltrated every field and contaminated the purity of research. With unrealistic and almost false results being slapped at the audience, researchers practicing such research usually step beyond the ethical laws and methods to manipulate their findings. It is tainted with bias and reeks of ulterior motives. The blatant support for a cause by a researcher has met with conflicting opinions. Some people equate advocacy research to a more noble dimension of research, such as research aimed to find a solution for a disease. These people argue that knowing the outcome of your study is not different from having a strong hypothesis or conducting a thorough literature review. The in-built passion for advocacy increases the susceptibility of bias to obtain the preferred results required to fuel a particular campaign. However, this susceptibility is not adequate evidence for bias. One can definitely notice the evidence of bias in advocacy research through poorly conducted and deliberately biased results. The bias results are however more dangerous and unreliable rather than the results obtained from a poorly conducted study. Therefore, it becomes the responsibility of every individual, who depends on research to make a vital decision in their life or choices, to be more aware of the results that are hurled in their direction to bait their thoughts. However, if a researcher is requested to conduct such research by a member of an advocacy group, then the susceptibility to research must be perceived as a part of the territory instead of an unfair prejudice in your work. Research is never flawless; however, the rigor of your methods and methodologies must be incontestable. A researcher must exploit every opportunity of objectivity and impartiality, particularly when selecting the research sample and collecting data. One may hire third-party services of a research organization that is well-known for its impartiality. Preconceived notions of bias can only be assuaged by implementing every existing tool to ascertain complete neutrality. Although this does not thwart any accusations of bias, it may prevent your research from collapsing on close scrutiny after these accusations.